Sisters of the Vast Black

Written by Lina Rather

Narrated by Adenrele Ojo

The sisters of the Order of Saint Rita captain their living ship into the reaches of space in Lina Rather’s
debut novella, Sisters of the Vast Black.

Years ago, Old Earth sent forth sisters and brothers into the vast dark of the prodigal colonies armed only with
crucifixes and iron faith. Now, the sisters of the Order of Saint Rita are on an interstellar mission of mercy aboard Our
Lady of Impossible Constellations, a living, breathing ship which seems determined to develop a will of its own.

When the order receives a distress call from a newly formed colony, the sisters discover that the bodies and souls in
their care—and that of the galactic diaspora—are in danger. And not from void beyond, but from the nascent Central
Governance and the Church itself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 25, 2020
• ISBN: 9781980096818

Lina Rather

Lina Rather is a speculative fiction author and graduate student living in Central New York. Her short fiction has appeared in venues including Lightspeed, Podcastle, and Shimmer. Her Tordotcom Publishing novella series, Our Lady of Endless Worlds, is about devotion, empire, and nuns living in a giant slug in outer space. When Lina isn’t writing, she likes to cook overly elaborate recipes, read history, and collect cool rocks.

Reviews for Sisters of the Vast Black

[james_knupp · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An excellent first work for a new author, Sisters of the Vast Black takes an interesting approach to how religion might adapt to a far future. Lina Rather brilliantly tackles the concept of a living ship, doing more show than tell but still telling just enough to ground its concept in some sense of reality. I'm really looking forward to reading more by Rather, as her sense of building a great story in a grand world really speaks to one of my great interests in sci-fi.

[tuusannuuska-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Liked the story and the characters well enough, but the use and exploitation of the living ships somewhat squicked me. Will keep reading the series, though.

[NicholaAnkeMillen · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wonderful story with heavy, heavy ideas. I feel the echoes of colonialism.

[jsabrina-219220 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The only thing disappointing about this book is the fact that it is a novella rather than a full-length novel -- because I loved the concepts, characters and execution. I would have loved spending more time with the characters, learning more about each one's background and internal life, and exploring the universe more deeply.

This is a complete, resolved story, but it also leaves a door open to further adventures.

[spaceandsorcery · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The notion of “nuns in space” might sound bizarre, or fit for some humorous tale, but Sisters of the Vast Black turned out to be a quietly emotional, introspective story able to pack a great deal of thought-provoking concepts into a short number of pages. Its immediate attraction for me came from the very peculiar ship the titular nuns travel on: a living ship, a creature offering a symbiotic partnership to its human travelers, and capable of adjusting its inner spaces to suit these companions - I felt an immediate connection with the Leviathan Moya, from the SF series Farscape, and the similarities between these two space-bound creatures helped me to feel immediately comfortable in the environment of Our Lady of Impossible Constellations, as the nuns’ ship/traveling convent was christened.The story: in the distant future humanity has scattered all over the Solar System and beyond and is now still recovering from a brutal war between Earth Central Government and the rebellious colonies, a conflict where man-made destruction walked hand-in-hand with terrible plagues that wiped out entire settlements. The nuns traveling aboard the Our Lady belong to the order of Saint Rita and their duties include offering medical help where required, and officiating marriages and baptisms, but more than anything else working as the connective tissue for this dispersed humanity. They come from widely different backgrounds, but are united by their desire to offer help and comfort to all who need them. The main figures include the Reverend Mother, an elderly woman who made a vow of silence and communicates only through hand signs; sister Faustina, tech-oriented and quite practical, who joined the convent to escape a life of deprivations; sister Gemma, the living ship specialist who harbors a guilty secret; and sister Lucia, the group’s doctor and a person fully dedicated to helping those in need. The day-to-day descriptions of the nuns fulfilling their chores are interspersed with thought-provoking discussions about the nature of their ministry and the way in which theology and practical necessities can blend into new and unforeseen combinations, or the means to insure a beneficial coexistence of faith and science: these nuns have been away from “home” - i.e. Earth and the rules of government and dogma both - for a long time, and have often had to improvise when faced with situations where the old precepts did not apply. In the vastness of space the spirit of the law (or of doctrine) takes precedence on its literal application, a fact that becomes more evident with the arrival of a newly-minted priest from the Vatican, his zeal in sharp divergence with the nuns’ hands-on approach to issues.The story takes a sharp turn toward drama once a call for help from a recently visited colony lifts the veil from the ominous new way in which the Central Government tries to re-establish its supremacy on Earth’s distant colonies: the nuns will have to decide between blindly obeying the rules of a distant entity or doing what is right, and humane - and paying the price for such a decision. There is a quiet poignancy in the description of their dilemma, and of the way it’s resolved, that I found quite moving not in spite of, but thanks to the apparently unassuming, but very compelling, way in which it’s portrayed. On hindsight, I realized that in the short space of this novella, the author had managed to draw a clear portrait of her characters and to make them come alive for me in such a way that they remained in my thoughts - almost like an afterimage - for quite some time after I closed the book.I hope to read more from Lina Rather, because this sample of her work set her firmly on my radar, and I would welcome another look into this world.

[amanda4242_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Space nuns! Nuns in space! How much more than that do you need to make you pick this one up?In seriousness, this is a really good novella about nuns in the far future doing what nuns have been doing for centuries: caring for the sick, offering comfort, worshiping their god, and dealing with a remote Church bureaucracy which has very little idea of what the nuns face on a daily basis.Received via tor.com

[evano_21 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Fascinating world-creation. I'd like to visit a little longer next time.